To Helmand and back

More than 2,000 Fijians are currently serving in the British forces, trading their palm-fringed Paciﬁc islands for the battleﬁelds of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why do they do it? For a passport out of poverty and to ﬁght for the nation that once ruled them. Dan McDougall reports

To Helmand and back

More than 2,000 Fijians are currently serving in the British forces, trading their palm-fringed Paciﬁc islands for the battleﬁelds of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why do they do it? For a passport out of poverty and to ﬁght for the nation that once ruled them. Dan McDougall reports

Saturday 25 April 2009 19.01 EDT
First published on Saturday 25 April 2009 19.01 EDT

The risen Christ died for our sins! We deserve our punishment here on this earth..." The preacher bangs on the pulpit and waves his fist at the congregation of God-fearing middle-aged women crouched and penitent on the long palm mat before him. "We deserve to feel pain and sadness." As the hoarse rhetoric soars, a sudden cloudburst takes everyone by surprise, enveloping the lush greenery of the church garden in a celestial-looking mist.

Behind the altar, heavy flumes of rainwater pour directly into a plug socket which cracks and fizzles. As if electrified by the static in the air an elderly woman lunges forward in her fervour, speaking in tongues. Fainting in the humidity of dusk she is helped to her feet by applause and tears, warmly congratulated by all.

The drama over for the evening, Sera Vakabua clutches her Bible and walks out into the rain. Bookmarking psalm 27:1-3 is a faded photograph of her youngest son, Edward, in his British army uniform. He is standing in front of a makeshift signpost in English and Arabic, saying "Mortar Platoon". His 4th Battalion The Rifles fatigues are stained with sweat, but he is smiling in front of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces. She reads the words to me from memory as we walk to her home: "When evil men advance against me to devour my flesh, when my enemies attack me they will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege against me my heart will not fear."

Sera says "this was my son's Bible", and hands it to me for inspection. "It was at his bedside when he died. He had highlighted psalm 27 with a pen. I know he read it every night. Like the others, my son was terrified. He feared the terrorists more than he feared God himself."

On 6 July 2007, at the age of 23, Edward Vakabua became Fiji's eighth victim of the western wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an environment as far removed from his tropical island home as is imaginable. Since then, five more Fijians have fallen in the dirt of the desert, parched and distant from the turquoise atolls that shaped their youth. Each day, on the frontlines of Helmand and Baghdad, a league of nations fights tooth and nail for Britain, representing the broad church of the Commonwealth. Nepali Gurkhas, South African logistics specialists, Australian Special Services and, above all others, Fijian infantrymen patrol the streets of a foreign land for a foreign master. Today more than 2,000 Fijian nationals serve in the MoD but, as the Observer Magazine has discovered in the past few weeks, the legacy of war has left Fiji's army families torn apart by grief and suffering.

The thatched poolside bar at the Suva Holiday Inn is bustling with layover tourists and local municipal officer workers as a waiter comes out and lights a long row of kerosene torches. Crouching on the sea wall at the back of the complex, Derek Derenalagi removes two cylindrical black stumps, about two-feet long, from his legs and expertly attaches his American-engineered titanium prosthetics.

He has insisted we photograph him in his new legs. With some pride the 32-year-old starts to run across the grass, but his bulk sinks the thin metal into the mud. Unbowed, he leans on his wife for support and continues. "These legs have changed my life," says Derek, who, like most Fijian soldiers in the British army, is a devout Christian, and sees his recovery and indeed survival at the hands of a Taliban anti-tank mine as a miracle.

It was 6am on 19 July 2007, the dawn of another day in Afghanistan's Helmand province, when the Land Rover Private Derek Derenalagi was travelling in came into a flat, open plain just as the sun was nudging over the horizon. His mission, with three other soldiers from 2 Mercian Regiment, was to clear a remote site where a Chinook helicopter was about to land to pick up his commanding officer. The Fijian was at the back of the first vehicle, manning the machine gun, watching out for any sign of a Taliban ambush. But the driver wanted to give the gunner a good view over the mountainous terrain, so he reversed into what seemed to be the best spot. Suddenly, Derenalagi was sent hurtling through the air. Beneath the back wheel of the vehicle a 44-gallon oil drum cut in half and filled with nails, scrap metal and two anti-tank mines had exploded, flipping the vehicle like a toy car.

"It's the noise I remember most: the air being sucked out of the area like a screeching, the worst noise imaginable - like the gates of hell had been opened," Derenalagi tells me.

"I was thrown 30 yards from the Land Rover. I landed on some rocks. The pain was indescribable. I managed to lift my head a bit and I saw I was lying in a pool of blood. My body armour, my helmet and webbing had all been blown off. Then I saw my right leg wasn't there, and my left leg was badly burned and hanging on by just a few bloody strands. I was conscious enough to see my left boot was facing the wrong way. That made me pass out, I think.

"I came to and could feel the warmth of the sun on my face and I said a prayer. I was ready to go. I said, Lord, if you have a role for me in the future, to be an inspiration for others, then you will let me live. But whatever happens, I thank you for my life."

After half an hour, as blood seeped into the cracked desert earth, Derenalagi heard people shouting his name. "The soldiers in the vehicle behind dragged me to safety," he says. "But they didn't realise that I had broken my collarbone and my spine. I was in agony." After 20 minutes a helicopter took him to a field hospital where doctors amputated what was left of his legs. "I could hear the nurse's voice. Like a voice in a tunnel, echoing," he says. "She was saying: 'Be strong, Derek. You will be OK.' But I passed out when they amputated the second leg and they told the regiment that I had died." In fact, Derek had fallen into a coma. He was flown to the UK and, nine days later, woke up in Selly Oak Hospital, Birmingham, where many of Britain's war wounded are treated. His wife Anna was at his bedside.

"When I woke up I was confused because I thought I was still in Afghanistan," he says. "Anna was crying. I said I was hot and wanted to take my boots off. Then I said I wanted to go to the lavatory. 'You can't go to the lavatory,' she said. 'Why not?' I asked. She couldn't answer. Instead she took out her phone and took a photograph and showed it to me. I saw that I had no legs. 'This is how you are now,' she said.

"That was the lowest point of my life. Anna was in a terrible state. We knew our lives would never be the same again and we didn't know if we would be able to cope. All our plans, all our dreams were in ruins."

Derenalagi, who was born in Fiji and joined the British army in 2000, admits that he and his wife had to do "a lot of soul-searching" to come to terms with his disability. "Suddenly she thought her only future was as a full-time carer," he says. The couple's daughter Anna simply couldn't deal with it and returned to Fiji to stay with relatives.

"She used to come and watch me play rugby and seeing me with no legs was too much for her," he says. "I was in tears when I first came back from hospital and had to bum-shuffle around the house. I used to play rugby for Staines and for my regiment, and I couldn't do even simple things any more. But as I started my rehabilitation I was standing within weeks and I realised I was still breathing. We have to forget what happened and forgive those who did it. I was injured doing something I loved. We lost nine of our men on our tour in Helmand. At least I'm alive. We should be grateful for that."

Derenalagi claims his resolve to stay in the British army has been strengthened by his experience. "The MoD has been good to me. We have been given a five-bedroom house in Watford, and compensation. I can take an office job for life if I want one. They have done everything for me and I want to pay them back. It's not the other way around." Derek's ambition is now to represent Britain at the 2012 Paralympics in London. "I am a Fijian but I am also British. I joined the army because I wanted to fight for Britain, that's where my loyalties lie and my children will grow up British. Most Fijians love Britain and would love to live there if they had a chance, so I am lucky in a way."

Made up of more than 300 Pacific islands, Fiji was first visited by a European, the Dutch navigator Abel Tasman, in 1643. The islands remained a disparate group of feuding cannibal fiefdoms until they surrendered joint authority to Queen Victoria as late as 1874, pledging loyalty to her. Today, most Fiji islanders are fervently anglophile. Most municipal workers have resolutely refused to remove royal photos from offices, police stations and government buildings, even during the 2006 military coup and the three years of turmoil that ensued. The pale-blue Fiji flag has a union jack as a canton in the upper hoist; the Queen's birthday is observed as a public holiday; a youthful version of her profile is depicted on the currency notes and coins and a full-size portrait looks down on visitors to the former governor general's residence.

Britain might have been a strict colonial power, but to Fijians it put in place the pillars of society, introducing democratic government (ironically now deposed), robust legal and educational systems, plus a love of rugby and English literature. The white-uniformed Fiji police band even specialises in Beatles classics.

For the British Ministry of Defence, the Fijians, strong of heart and body, robust and compliant, are the perfect soldiers. Unlike most indigenous recruits they also intend to serve for 22 years, the maximum period, to gain the biggest possible pension. And they bring other benefits, too: the British Army rugby team has many Fijian players, and is much better for it. In Fiji, becoming a British army soldier is the equivalent of being a professional footballer for young British males.

But huge uncertainty surrounds the fate of the existing Fijians within the British army - 2,000 soldiers who provide for often desperately poor relatives. But as a result of the recent troubles, Fiji is suspended from the Commonwealth and no more young Fijians can be taken into the British Army.

According to local church elder Tevita Tuinalee, who runs a volunteer support group for the families of serving British soldiers, poverty is the defining reason for young Fijian men joining the British army, and with the highest male unemployment rates in the Pacific, the next generation may have nowhere to go and nothing to aspire to. "I have two boys serving in Iraq and Afghanistan and, like many Fijian parents with boys out there, we fast for them, we pray for them and we do everything we can to support them. Without the aspiration to join the British army, where do these young men go? The army is the making of them and we love England and we are proud that our boys fight for Britain. The Fijian boys are strong fighters and natural soldiers, that's why they are revered, and for that to stop will leave a massive hole in our society. There have been casualties, and that is a tragedy - but most of the families of the dead we have spoken to at church were immensely proud of their sons. The loss is hard to swallow but their children have died proud young men serving a righteous cause against evil, because as Christians that's how we see it."

A threadbare map of the Commonwealth hangs above the television on the wall of Bainimara Lagimiri's home, its corners limp and watermarked by decades of tropical humidity. At my feet Bainimara kneels on the palm-matted floor and mournfully places the back of her hand on the St Andrews flag as she smooths out a crease - another coffin standard. Her heavy face is a crumpled mass of grief and frustration.

Like most Fijian conscripts, Private Pita Tukutukuwaqa had answered a call for new recruits in the Fiji Times - the equivalent of X Factor auditions, one local British mandarin told me sarcastically over drinks in Suva. Three years after joining the 1st Battalion The Black Watch he died on 8 November 2004 when his Warrior armoured vehicle hit a roadside improvised explosive device - the attack, which happened near Camp Dogwood, 20 miles south of Baghdad, later prompted Tony Blair to defend patrolling tactics deployed from the base.

"My son joined the Black Watch in March 2001 and had served with the battalion in Kosovo before going to Iraq. His last days in Baghdad were terrifying for him. He sent me a letter saying suicide bombers were everywhere, that he didn't want to die. He was so young." As she speaks, Bainimara breaks down in tears and, hands shaking, passes me the letter sent to her by Lieutenant Colonel James Cowan, then the commanding officer of the 1st Battalion. In clipped tones it reads: "Pita was a trained sniper and an outstanding sportsman. He will be dearly missed by the regiment."

Like many of the mothers, brothers, sisters and wives interviewed by the Observer in Fiji, Bainimara says she was not offered counselling by the MoD. She said: "Nobody offered us psychological help to deal with the pain. I have spoken to many other mothers and it's the same. A flurry of activity and letters around the funeral, then we are left behind and forgotten. No explanation for why our sons died, for what point." As we speak, Bainimara opens up her son's condolence book. Inside are the scrawled messages of his fellow squaddies. The messages are, typically of soldiers, restrained. "Good lad" and, more than half a dozen times, "sorely missed", then "gentle giant", "kind heart", "fine rifleman", "made me laugh".

"The autopsy was difficult, I was told," Bainimara tells me as we leave. "There was massive blast and terrible burn trauma to his legs, and he was missing most of his right hand. His torso was intact but his head was very badly damaged. The mortician built a right hand out of gauze and cotton and similarly stuffed the legs of his trousers. He washed and shaved my son and put on makeup. I think he must have also washed my son's hair, rinsing it with shampoo, holding his limp head in his hands. I think about that a great deal, the water running through it and his fingers and into the sink, along with the blood."

The narrow track to Sera Vakabua's suburb is bone-jarring. In the mountains above Suva, logging has denuded the once heavily forested hills to reveal a patchwork of pine plantations, palm trees, cane-stands, scrub and black volcanic rock. Inside the bungalow, painted blues and turquoises of the room evoke the colour of the distant lagoon. Sera's six-year-old grandson is clutching his uncle's medals. He reads the silver monogrammed lettering. B-E-L-F-A-S-T. The other is a sand-coloured ribbon with the black, white and red of the Iraqi flag - the medal for British soldiers who have served in Iraq. The boy proudly feels the weight of the medal as he asks his gran to pin it to his chest. His grandmother refuses.

"People tell me my son is a great hero. They tell me that often," says Sera, as she patiently hands me her son's "belongings". In her front room, as with all the Fijian families of the fallen, she has erected a shrine to her child. In her shaking hands is the union flag that was draped over his coffin as he was flown back to Brize Norton with full military honours.

But Rifleman Edward Vakabua was killed not by a roadside bomb, the main slayer of island soldiers, but by one of his own colleagues, Rifleman Aaron Kendrick, 20, who shot him in the head with a sniper rifle while messing around in a bunk room at Basra Palace. Kendrick, of 4th Battalion The Rifles, who was not trained to use the weapon, had cocked it as a joke, aimed it at Vakabua and pulled the trigger. The bullet struck the soldier in the skull as he lay on his bed. Colleagues tried to save him but he died minutes later. Kendrick, based at Warminster in Wiltshire, admitted negligently discharging an L96 sniper rifle but denied manslaughter.

A board of five army officers found him guilty following a court martial at Bulford, Wiltshire. Sentencing him, Judge Advocate Jack Bayliss said he would serve 16 months of the sentence at the military detention centre at Colchester. But Kendrick has not been dismissed from the army and it is up to his commanding officer whether his services are retained when his sentence is completed. His likely return to service is impossible for Vakabua's mother to accept.

"As a Christian, it is in my heart to forgive," Sera tells me. "I went to the tribunal in England and I listened to the case. I listened to the commanding officer's testimony of Kendrick as an upstanding young man. I listened to his mother and I told her I had forgiven her son and then I listened as the jury gave him a few months in prison and said he could continue as a soldier. I know in my heart if my son had killed Kendrick, if a Fijian had killed a British soldier, the outcome would've been different. My son would have been sent to prison for a decade and thrown out of the army. The British army let me down. People say Edward is a hero but to me he is a victim of the world, a world far removed from island life, a victim of politicians and people who were cleverer than him. People who used him. I tell my children that my grandsons will never join any army. They will live in peace and grow old to see their own children live."

Saturday night television blares in the background as a crescendo of tinny gameshow applause drowns out Camari Babakobau's faint voice. In mid-sentence she seems to give up and suddenly breaks down in tears and walks, head bowed, towards the narrow front windows of her cramped red-bricked army barracks home in Windsor, on the outskirts of London. At her feet her two young sons bicker over the remote control, increasing the volume further as they clamber for their mother's attention. Their dinners, still warm and untouched on the plates, sit on the kitchen table.

Outside the rain is pounding the glass. In the wind the streetlights flicker, adding to the gloom. "It gets dark so quickly here," says Camari, sadly. "The weather is the hardest thing about living in England. It's what I miss most about Fiji. It adds to my anxiety and depression, but I must stay here for my children, for their education. He brought us here from the islands, my man, to give us a future - and now he has left us, we are alone. This is an army house. We will lose it in two years and have to go elsewhere."

On the chipboard partition wall of her front lounge is an oversized portrait of her dead husband, Trooper Ratu Sakeasi Babakobau, handsome but somehow ill at ease in his Household Cavalry uniform. In the hallway, next to a postcard calendar of the Pacific islands, is another photograph of the guardsman in desert fatigues. Behind him is the beige scrubland of the Shomali plain, about 20 miles north of Kabul. The last picture of him before he died.

Babakobau was killed on 2 May 2008. The 29-year-old former fisherman died in the landlocked Nowzad area of Helmand, the victim of a crude Taliban landmine, as he provided protection for a routine patrol.

Within a month of arriving in Afghanistan the Fijian was dead. Less than four hours later, officers and a Household Cavalry chaplain were dispatched to Windsor to break the news to his widow. "I have spoken to other wives and mothers and they tell me they knew when the doorbell rang, when they opened the door and saw the uniformed officers standing on the doorstep. In an instant they knew what was coming," says Camari. "I didn't know. I didn't expect it because I probably didn't understand how dangerous by husband's job was. I thought they had come to see me about my son's British citizenship. I just remember crying. I couldn't stop crying, my sons wouldn't give me a minute's peace."

Like many of the relatives of Iraq and Afghanistan's fallen soldiers, Camari says the haunting final approach of the Hercules that brought her husband back to her, above all, remains imprinted on her mind. In her dreams she sees the plane eerily banking and coming in to land, everything in terrible slow motion.

"The band played at Brize Norton and I stood there just weeping and clutching my children's hands. The aircraft was grey, huge; it looked terrifying in the air, moving slowly as it came in to land. I kept thinking why is he in there, not breathing, his useless body coming back to me, for what? He was such a big man, a proud and strong man, and he had been reduced to this. Can you tell me why this happened? Can you tell my children when I put them to sleep at night and tell them their dad is never coming back."

Letters from the frontline

Rifleman Edward Vakabua, 4th Battalion The RiflesDied: Basra, Iraq

"It gets harder and harder each day. We need to keep our eyes open, the CO says. But we don't know what the enemy looks like. The patrols are terrifying. It's worse early morning and late at night when an attack could come from anywhere at any time. Everyone wants to kill us and even during the day we are a sitting target. Most people sleep in the day. What can you do against someone who blows themselves up in front of you? I read the Bible and say my prayers but the other soldiers make me laugh. I don't want another tour if it's like this."

"We saw some coffins at the airport the other day, young men. I was told one of them was 19 and from Fiji but I never found out if he was. I remember everybody looked away. I think of Fiji a lot and miss you, Mum. It's hard to say when I can come back but we will have a big party at the house. The food here is really bad, not enough fish, I want some kokoda [raw, marinated fish]. The soldiers here throw spice on their food but it still tastes bland. Afghanistan is supposed to be worse than here so maybe I am lucky to be based in Baghdad. At least we can get burgers sometimes."

"The desert is cold at night, colder than Britain in the winter. There are other soldiers here, local Afghans helping us and they sit out in the cold, smoking cigarettes. They don't seem to notice, they never seem to eat or rest. There are no women anywhere. They hide behind closed doors and windows. I carry my Bible in my pack but the people here seem godless. We have a pastor who takes Sunday prayers but only a few of us sit in. There are other Fijians serving in Helmand province but I haven't met them."